Neo Sports Broadcast Pvt Ltd has complained to the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) against an ad of Ten Sports in which the latter has claimed to be the No. 1 sports channel, which had appeared in ‘impact’ magazine in the issue dated January 26- February, 2009. The complaint has been upheld as per the ASCI code and the industry body concluded that the claim in the ad was misleading in ambiguity. The ad has been suspended temporarily.

To prove their point, Neo Sports acquired a certificate from TAM Media Research with the absolute data and numbers of the channel’s performance compared to other sports channels, thus claiming that Neo Sports was the No. 1 sports channel.

Abhishek Verma, Head - Marketing and Communication, Neo Sports, informed that just a few weeks earlier, Ten Sports had published its print ad claiming to be the No. 1 channel in that space. Neo Sports had also published its channel’s rating claiming to be the No. 1 channel in the same publication. Hence, taking this forward, the channel issued a complaint to ASCI against Ten Sports channel.

Verifying the facts and data received from TAM certifying the correct numbers, ASCI issued a letter in favour of Neo Sports. The complaint was considered by the Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) at their meeting held on February 24, 2009.

As per the decision, the complaint was upheld as the advertisement had contravened Chapter 1.4 of the ASCI Code. The CCC concluded that the claim ‘Ten Sports is the No. 1 Sports channel for the 6th consecutive year’ was misleading by ambiguity.

Thus, ASCI requested the advertiser to modify the ad appropriately to which the industry body was informed that the said advertisement was being suspended temporarily.